21 April 2023

A new release candidate for Wagtail 5.0 is available. So we thought this would be a good time to walk through what a release candidate is and how to test it.

All about Wagtail's release candidates

Around 2-3 weeks before a final release, the Wagtail core team likes to put a release candidate out. Typically, it will have a version number like 5.0rc1 and be labelled in PyPI as a "pre-release" to indicate it's not an official release. The release contains all the big features we're looking to include, such as dark mode, SVG support, and other features we're including in the 5.0 release.

Release candidates are useful because they give other community members a chance to test the new release on their own Wagtail projects and give the core team feedback. Also, even though the tests for Wagtail are fairly robust, they don't catch everything. Having more eyes on the code increases the chances we'll catch bugs or security issues.

Wagtail 5.0 will have breaking changes in it, so we definitely would like as many people as possible to test it. If you want to know more about those changes and why we're addressing technical debt in this release, Matthew Westcott shared his thoughts in a recent blog post.

Now, how do you test a release candidate? Here are some steps:

1. Choose a testing project: Ideally, you would pick a project that's already built out with a good amount of published content and packages installed. You can also use the bakerydemo for testing if you want to. Note that you're definitely going to want to test the release candidate in a local environment or on a development server.
2. Install the release candidate: You can use pip to install the release candidate with the command pip install wagtail==5.0rc1
3. Adapt your project: Your project may need some code adjustments or package adjustments to make it compatible with the newest version of Wagtail. Look through the release notes for recommended changes.
4. Test all your favorite features: Create pages and posts, run reports, try updating your snippets, and anything else you care about. Use the features that matter to you and your users the most to see if the new release breaks any of them.
5. Report any issues you find: If you find any bugs or have any feedback on the changes, then you can tell us all about in the release candidate GitHub discussion

Click HERE to go to the release candidate GitHub discussion

Latest chirps

• Why Wagtail Won Me Over: Meagen Voss shares why storytellers should strongly consider Wagtail for managing their content.
• Use This 5-Point Checklist to Evaluate Your New CMS: This short guide from Lincoln Loop uses Wagtail as an example as they offer pointers on how to evaluate a CMS.
• Working on the Common Knowledge Website: Anna Cunnane discusses her wins and her struggles in building a new website for Common Knowledge with Wagtail.
• Comparing Wagtail CMS and Django CMS: Extern Labs walks through why they are choosing Wagtail CMS over Django CMS.

Until next time, thank you for reading! If you have a news item to contribute or a package release to report, please reach out to us through the Slack community or email us.

Need help with Wagtail? Find it here.